Archinect - News

Oceanwide Plaza: Graffiti 'vandalism' or the greatest tag 'takeover' of all time?

2024-03-09T08:00:00-05:00

The New York Times has entered the debate surrounding LA's troubled Oceanwide Plaza development this week after social media and the outside press tied its celebrity status to the neglect of downtowns, housing rights issues, and their relationship to developer capitalism.

The Times piece follows news of the city’s recent order on Oceanwide to install a security fence to prevent against interlopers' vandalism and the 'public nuisance' the highly publicized graffiti artwork has turned the unfinished project into.

'Vandalism' is a charged term to apply in this case, but it has affected other sites near Downtown Los Angeles, like the copper wire-stripped Sixth Street Viaduct, in the midst of its delayed economic rebound. The street art community is here portrayed alongside BASE jumpers as a lawless quandary that considers their “takeover” a bar-raising move geared mainly at promotion and exposure. A smarter take is that taggers have the broader consensus of society so well-figured tha...

LA City Council orders graffiti removal on infamous unfinished Oceanwide Plaza towers

2024-02-12T13:33:00-05:00

City Council Members in Los Angeles have issued a mandate to owners of the graffiti-tagged Oceanview Plaza development in Downtown to remove the artwork weeks after its unfinished exterior became a national news item and the latest flash point in a debate over the citywide housing crisis that has lingered for a number of years.

By a vote of 14-0, Council Members approved Kevin de León’s motion calling for the city to foot the bill for cleaning up the stalled $1 billion towers if China-based developer Oceanwide fails to meet their February 17th deadline for removal. (CoStar first reported on the motion this weekend h/t Bizow.com.)

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Chop ‘em Down Films (@chopemdownfilms)

The internet sensation was covered in tags last month by artists apparently inspired by an early December operation in downtown Miami and able to bypass the security detail on site, which has been embroiled in a payment dispute with developers since last ye...

Designer creates camouflaged rectilinear motorcycle that blends into the urban landscape

2020-07-31T15:36:00-04:00

Designer Joey Ruiter has recently created a new piece of urban architecture. Or at least, on the surface, it appears that way. The urban artwork sits as a canvas for graffiti, but, with the push of a button, the metallic cubic geometry lifts off of the ground, flips out a seat, and unveils a set of handlebars, transforming into a fully-functional motorcycle. "I wanted to create a piece that is museum-worthy that’s completely unnoticeable and so familiar, you’re just going to walk past it," Ruiter said about the piece on his website. Moreover, Ruiter said that he and his J.RUITER studio is all about "trying to push design to the point of not being there."

Portuguese street artist combines tagging, illustration, and animation to create building-scale optical illusions

2019-09-16T19:30:00-04:00

A Portuguese graffiti artist who goes by Vile has been painting since he was a teenager, a depth of experience that, when combined with his skills in animation and illustration, allows him to "create stunning optical illusions whereby his name appears as a window cut into the side of a wall," as My Modern Met reports.

"The most challenging part of his creative process," My Modern Met explains, "is color matching, as the palette must be selected carefully in order to make the final product convincing."

Below is an image of the wall before the painting:

Image courtesy of Vile

Check out his instagram for more of his work.

Carlo Ratti uses drones to set the tone for a technological future in artistic collaboration

2019-08-03T09:57:00-04:00

Architect Carlo Ratti's design studio has utilized drone technology to produce a crowdsourced work of art in Turin, Italy. Measuring in at 46 x 39 feet, the project was developed as part of UFO-Urban Flying Opera, a participatory technology and art project funded by Compagnia di San Paolo.

Created by four UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) working in unison for two straight days, the vertical graffiti has proved to be the result of a fruitful experiment. According to Ratti's firm, this marked the first time a swarm of drones were employed to create a collaborative piece of art.

Crowdsourcing was a foundational building block in the project. The final product was the result of feedback received from over a thousand participants. The public was invited to contribute visual content that conveyed their thoughts, hopes, and ideas regarding what cities should look like.

“The city is an open canvas, where people can inscribe their stories in many ways,” says Ratti.“Such processes have alwa...

How can paint dematerialize architecture?

2019-07-12T14:03:00-04:00

While technological sleights of hand grow more and more sophisticated, it is important to remember that sometimes paint, pencil, and sunlight are all that is needed to create transformative works of art.

A good example of the latter approach comes from Italian artist Peeta, a Venice-based muralist who transforms buildings through the application of surrealistic, larger-than-life murals.

Image courtesy of Peeta.

On his website, Peeta states that his approach is geared toward using art to nudge viewers out of their everyday mindset, while still maintaining certain ties to the physical realities of the built environment. He says, "when painting on walls, my aim is always to create a dialogue with the structural and cultural parameters of the surrounding context, either architectural or not."

Image courtesy of Peeta.

Peeta's work is best suited for corners, where the artist is able to render flat planes and deep visual fields of shape and color that trick your eye into forgetting that t...

For its 30th birthday, Artist JR creates a large-scale optical illusion at the Louvre Pyramid

2019-04-01T19:05:00-04:00

When built in 1989 by Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei, the glass pyramid was derided as a sacrilegious addition to the historic Louvre Museum. But three decades later, the once-reviled Louvre Pyramid has become a beloved Paris landmark and highly-visited tourist attraction.

This weekend, the iconic project celebrated its 30th anniversary. For the festivities, the Paris museum enlisted the French street artist JR who, three years ago, covered the pyramid in a giant trompe l’oeil that made it disappear behind a giant black-and-white photo.

A continuation on this prior piece, his latest work saw the help of 400 volunteers, who worked for four days to surround the glass pyramid with 2,000 strips of paper. His latest stunt installation, the collage created the optical illusion that the pyramid was rising from a rock quarry.

Shortly after its announcement, it was destroyed underfoot as visitors left the paper collage in shreds. On the project's planned destruction, JR said "the imag...

Los Angeles-based artist turns concrete ruins into luxury handbags

2018-06-27T19:16:00-04:00

Out in the deserts of Lime, Oregon, an unexpected site of boulder-sized luxury handbags has taken over the arid landscape. The gigantic purses, which sport the designs of Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Prada, Gucci, Chanel and McQueen, are part of Thrashbird's latest project titled 'Valley of Secret Values." Known for his cheeky sense of humor with which he subverts mainstream culture, the LA-based street artist has transformed the concrete ruins of an abandoned power plant into new art.

The boulders have been spray painted to suggest the iconic patterns of various luxury designer handbags, and in some cases, with found materials to look like straps, handles, and other accessories—gold painted tires are made into chains and rocks, into beads. Stuck into the absurd, crumbling landscape, the works appear as a graveyard for the cult status symbols. Part cautionary tale, part beautification project, the bags, in Thrashbird's own words, "continue the important discourse surrounding society’s d...

5Pointz lawsuit: Judge rules in favor of street artists, awards $6.7 Million

2018-02-13T14:10:00-05:00

[...] a judge has ruled that a New York developer must pay $6.7 million to a group of graffiti artists to compensate for painting over their work without warning in 2013. The decision represents a decisive victory for street artists in a case that pitted their rights against those of a real estate executive. The artists sued the developer, Gerald Wolkoff, for violating their rights after he whitewashed their work at the famous 5Pointz art mecca in Long Island City to make way for condos.

Citing protection of the artists'—historically significant but ultimately destroyed—works at 5Pointz under the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA), Judge Frederic Block ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in this closely watched landmark case: "Since 5Pointz was a prominent tourist attraction the public would undoubtedly have thronged to say its goodbyes during those 10 months and gaze at the formidable works of aerosol art for the last time. It would have been a wonderful tribute for the artists that they richly deserved."

5Pointz lawsuit enters next round: Is street art protected under the Visual Artists Rights Act?

2017-12-26T18:09:00-05:00

Was the street art covering 5Pointz, a largely empty warehouse in Long Island City, Queens, significant enough to preserve under US federal law? A federal judge in Brooklyn in currently considering the arguments in a case that tests the limits of the Visual Artists Rights Act (Vara), and could soon decide whether a developer Gerald Wolkoff and his companies violated the act when he tore down the graffiti-covered building to construct residential towers and what, if any, damages they will pay.

Footwear giant Puma accused of defacing 17th century buildings in Delhi for shoe commercial

2017-11-22T13:38:00-05:00

Global sportswear giant Puma was accused today of irreversibly damaging 17th-century architecture in Delhi's historic quarter as part of an advertising stunt to promote a new line of shoes.

For their latest shoe ad dubbed "Suede Gully," Puma spraypainted large, colorful murals over several buildings in Old Delhi, a centuries-old quarter and heritage area. The stunt has conservationists outraged, claiming that the graffiti has caused permanent damage to the carved sandstone, limestone plaster and Lahori bricks.

Rules to protect Delhi's heritage sites do exist, as does one that specifically forbids advertising on historic buildings. However, laws protecting these sites from destruction are rarely enforced and the sportswear brand was granted all of the necessary permissions for their graffiti clad campaign.

Graffiti artists sue developer over the whitewashing and demolition of 5 Pointz in Long Island City

2017-10-23T13:18:00-04:00

Wolkoff granted permission to artists to paint on the building in 1993, when Long Island City wasn’t hot property....Fast forward to 2013, New York real estate was exploding. The building’s location was highly desirable.

5 Pointz, located in Long Island City, was an American mural space considered to be the world's premier graffiti mecca. Bought by developer Jerry Wolkoff in 1971, the building's exterior was graffitied over with a myriad of street art when Wolkoff started leasing space as artists' studios in the 90s.

As property values in the area started to rise, Wolkoff made the controversial decision in 2013 to stealthily whitewash the graffiti. The building was demolished shortly thereafter to make room for two luxury high-rises. To make matters worse, the new high-rises were to incorporate street art into the decor, gaining clout from the same history of the site it sought to destroy.

Firing back, a group of 20 New York street artists are in federal court this week fighting Wolkoff and his companies. The muralists are arguing that based on the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, Wolkoff should not have destroyed the structure without permission and proper notice. Due to the international statu...

Philip Johnson-designed Interfaith Peace Chapel vandalized in Dallas

2017-01-09T21:13:00-05:00

Dallas police were at Cathedral of Hope [...] investigating graffiti painted onto the church’s Interfaith Peace Chapel. The building was vandalized at about 11 p.m. on Wednesday night, according to the Rev. Neil Cazares-Thomas, CoH’s lead pastor. [...] The spray-painted message included a Louisiana phone number and referred to a car as a “Brown Chivy Suburbin.” The name “Johntion Kimbrou” — possibly “Kimbrow” — was also painted on the church, along with a reference to “kitty porn.”

Image via Dallas Voice

Anthropologist discovers "hobo graffiti" dating back almost a century

2016-06-01T17:55:00-04:00

Anthropologist Susan Phillips had spent a career examining the graffiti that covers urban walls, bridges and freeway overpasses. But when she came across an unrecognizable collection made not of spray paint but substances like grease pencil and apparently left there for a century, she was stunned. Phillips had uncovered a peculiar, almost extinct form of American hieroglyphics known as hobo graffiti, the treasure trove discovered under a nondescript, 103-year-old bridge spanning the LA River.

Giant "calligraffiti" mural unites community in Cairo slum

2016-04-07T13:32:00-04:00

Amid Cairo's brick buildings and heaping piles of trash is a sprawling work of art, which, at first, looks messy and incoherent. But when you stand on the nearby hillside and read the spray-painted Arabic "calligraffiti," as its creator Tunisian-French artist eL Seed calls it, the message reads loud and clear: "If one wants to see the light of the sun, he must wipe his eyes." [...] in total secrecy from the Egyptian government due to the country's strict laws forbidding artistic expression.

All images by the artist, eL Seed. For more images click here.

More Cairo-related stories in the Archinect news:

Leading street artists weigh in on the gentrification debate

2015-11-16T18:32:00-05:00

Earlier this week, the online street art community was abuzz about an article by Rafael Schacter for The Conversation, From dissident to decorative: why street art sold out and gentrified our cities. [...] Basically, Schacter argues that street art isn’t rebellious anymore. Rather, that it’s most notable form is as a tool used by corporations to spur gentrification. Agree or disagree, the article is a must-read.

Vandalog author RJ Rushmore reached out to some of the influential figures in street art and muralism to get their reactions to Schacter's claim that street art has sold out and become complicit in the corporate gentrification of our cities. He received responses from Buff Monster, Living Walls, 1xRun, Jeffrey Deitch, Libray Street Collective, Tristan Eaton, John Fekner, Gaia, Ganzeer, Carlo McCormick, The Painted Desert Project, Jessie Unterhalter, Vexta, Wall Therapy and shared their views here.

Related news and one exclusive interview with Buff Monster on Archinect:

"Kant is a moron" graffitied on the philosopher's home

2015-03-20T20:01:00-04:00

Russian police say they're looking for the intellectually minded miscreants who graffitied "Kant is a moron"—along with a flower and heart—on the philosopher's home outside Kaliningrad. With Arthur Schopenhauer dead for 155 years, however, authorities start off with few strong leads.

The derelict house does look like an easy target for vandalism, but apparently the philosopher never even actually lived inside. The Atlantic points out that the local structure Kant lived in was destroyed sometime in the 19th century, and the tagged building was in fact a new one built on the same site. Which, apparently, relieves The Atlantic of treating this as a preservationist issue, and instead gives free reign to cram in as many of Kant's philosophical principles as possible. See below:

"They say no reason, pure or otherwise, was given for the crime."
"Even the timing of the crime is unclear—journalists discovered the note, at once crude and rather refined, while exploring Kant's derelict home."
"But for those who would reclaim the discipline's more raucous reputation of the past, the graffiti is perhaps a positive sign, and maybe the first salvo in a war between Situationists and Enlightenment thinkers. Indeed, a critic of Kant's ideas might feel a categorical imperative to tak...

Detroit's struggle to distinguish between graffiti (boo!) and murals (yay!)

2015-02-20T14:50:00-05:00

But how to draw the distinction between unauthorized graffiti and murals? Late last year, city officials issued thousands of dollars worth of fines before admitting they couldn't tell the difference between vandalism and authorized artwork (they eventually dismissed the fines). To correct this, Castañeda-López says the city is working on the seemingly Herculean task of creating a registry for all Detroit's existing street art.

In light of 5 POINTZ demolition, DEFACED fights to protect NYC's artistic roots

2014-09-30T17:20:00-04:00

Upon the recent controversial demolition of the "5 POINTZ" graffiti mecca in Long Island City, NY, a group of architects consisting of Arianna Armelli, Ishaan Kumar, David Sepulveda and Wagdy Moussa came up with the idea of DEFACED. In the proposal, DEFACED is an organization that is dedicated to the preservation of cultural landmarks, districts, and neighborhoods worldwide.

Using 5 Pointz as a starting point, DEFACED asserts not only the timeless value of open artistic expression but also the need to build communities where all inhabitants can benefit and thrive. The proposal calls attention to NYC's gentrifying cityscape over the last decade, ongoing socio-political concerns, and last but not least, that a structure like 5 Pointz — although considered an eyesore to some — was truly a luxury of its own kind.

Below is the project in fuller detail, provided by the architects:

"INTRODUCTION: You see, it goes like this; New York City was affordable when it was ugly and unpleasant; whe...

Can Graffiti Be Copyrighted?

2014-09-22T14:05:00-04:00

In July, Anasagasti hired a lawyer and filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit, accusing American Eagle of stealing his work and seeking monetary damages. If it sounds novel to apply copyright to graffiti art, that’s because it is: Lawyers who work in this area say it’s not clear anyone has ever tried this in court. Copyright law, as its name suggests, lays out the rules for when it’s okay to copy something. But does it extend to art that's on public walls?

The Outlaw Instagrammers of New York City

2014-08-25T15:32:00-04:00

There has long been a subculture of so-called “urban explorers” who have made a game of accessing off-limits places. [...] Urban explorers take photos mainly to document that they’ve been there, while for Deas the image is the whole point. The outlaw Instagrammers have more in common with graffiti artists, another subculture of underground creatives who make their work in the cracks of the urban landscape.

Previously in Russia: Skywalking - hacking architecture in Russia

The Demolition of 5 Pointz Has Begun

2014-08-22T12:48:00-04:00

5 Pointz, New York City’s “graffiti mecca,” is being demolished right now. This morning, a backhoe began tearing into the building that has served as a legal spot for aerosol artists for over two decades. In 2011, the property owner announced that he will be developing the site and transforming it into a massive residential condo complex.

Previously

When Cities Become Science, Where Does Art Fit In?

2014-08-04T14:22:00-04:00

But, with all this push to quantize and characterize, there are dangers. Cities clearly are more than a new kind of physics problem. They are also creations of the human imagination and, as such, they live or die by the quality of the imagination we bring to them. Thats why no discussion of the health of cities can be complete without thinking about the role of art — public art.

New Renderings of What Will Replace Grafitti Art Mecca 5Pointz Emerge

2014-07-31T20:09:00-04:00

If you loved 5Pointz, grab a box of tissues because you aren't going to be happy with what's planned for the soon to be demolished building. New renderings of what will replace the former art mecca have emerged, and unsurprisingly, the towers are as ho hum residential as they come. The new design is the work of New York-based HTO Architect, and once complete, will hold 1,000 apartments within two towers of 41 and 47 stories each.

Google Adds Graffiti to Its Art Portfolio

2014-06-20T14:10:00-04:00

Using images provided by cultural organizations worldwide, some of which were captured with Google’s Street View camera technology, [the Google Cultural Institute's Street Art Project] includes street art from around the globe, including work that no longer exists [...] Google is the latest organization to wade into debates about how or whether to institutionalize, let alone commercialize, art that is ephemeral and often willfully created subversively.

Egypt’s street artists now risk even more

2014-02-19T15:22:00-05:00

As more journalists are being arrested in Egypt, artists are under threat as well. [...] Political slogans and portraits of people who have died since the January 25 revolution are painted over by the government and replaced immediately by artists. The walls of Mohamed Mahmoud Street leading to Tahrir Square are layers of colorful murals over asymmetrical blotches of white paint. And despite its attempt to silence, the dictatorial white ironically makes a great primer for many of the artworks.

Over 100 urban artists repaint a soon-to-be-demolished tower in Paris

2013-11-27T14:19:00-05:00

In the 13th Arrondisement in Paris, the brightly painted "Tour Paris 13" building -- is easy to spot from a distance. Described as the largest group exhibition of street art, Gallery Itinerance gathered over 100 urban artists representing 16 nationalities to use their artistic skills to repaint just about every corner of the old 9-floored tower right at the brink of its demolition -- making a vivid statement that "in the end, everything will just disappear in the rubble."

The completion of the Tour 13 project happened not long after the controversial decision to redevelop the historic 5 Pointz "graffiti mecca" in New York.

Here are more details of the project:

"For many months, the project voluntarily remained conﬁdential. Coordinated by
Mehdi Ben Cheikh, Director of Gallery Itinerance, with the support of the 13th Arrondisement City Hall and the consent of ICF Habitat La Sabliere, the building’s landlord, decided to appeal to more than one hundred street-art artists from ...

5 Pointz "graffiti mecca" in Long Island City faces imminent destruction

2013-11-11T18:21:00-05:00

The artists behind New York’s graffiti haven 5 Pointz have learned that their last-ditch legal effort to save the outdoor gallery will likely fail. “The building, unfortunately, is going to have to come down,” federal judge Frederic Block said in New York’s eastern district court on Friday. [...] “I’m getting the sense that the traditional academic way of looking at things needs to be updated,” Block said.

Rothko painting potentially Yellowed

2012-10-07T19:56:00-04:00

"I am a naturally peaceful person, but I wouldn't be that upset if 'Vladimir' accidentally met with a baseball bat," - an art lover @twitter

The Guardian reported "A man has defaced a multimillion-pound Mark Rothko mural hanging in the Tate Modern gallery in front of onlookers. A police investigation is now under way into the vandalism of the US artist's work.

The graffiti on the painting appears to read "a potential piece of yellowism." According to an online manifesto, Yellowism is an artistic movement run by two people named Vladimir Umanets and Marcin Lodyga."

A related discussion on graffiti and tagging on Archinect "Graffiti Culture Thesis"

Jeffrey Deitch can't even please the neo-con's

2011-04-25T12:46:38-04:00

Deitch’s Disneyesque barrio gave New Yorkers who would never dream of getting off the subway north of 96th Street that delightful frisson of proximity to the underclass, just as the graffiti cult provides affluent viewers with the sense that they are in touch with authentic ghetto culture.

Here is a totally hilarious, angry finger-wag from the libertarian/neo-con City Journal. It calls out the "petite" Jeffrey Deitch and LA's Museum of Contemporary Art because, apparently, ensconcing graffiti *within* the museum walls is not enough for the author as a containment of the "vandalism." The cranky author calls out Deitch, MOCA, and graf artists on their "hypocrisy," but why complain? They're doing exactly what she wants! (And by the way, she calls Obey artist Shepard Fairey Jeffrey Deitch's "poodle.") [Via @a_small_lab] Radical Graffiti Chic by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal Spring 2011